A Private Blog Network/Link Network or Public Blog Network, is a series of websites (typically blogs) that are maintained for the purpose of ranking a select website quickly for a particular search term.

The practice is risky because it requires deceiving search engine algorithms using a mixture of High, Medium and Low PR websites, new websites and old websites(aged several years, possibly purchased via auction), a mixture of varied anchor texts, and often relevant content. It is often very expensive, too, as it requires either a subscription that is monthly or it requires the purchase of dozens of aged domains, Virtual assistants to help run the sites and content that appears regular.

With this article, we want to discourage you from purchasing such services or from scheming a network to cheat Google — because we believe you’ll eventually get caught, and it’s a bad thing to do.

What’s the difference between Public and Private Networks?

The difference between the two is, one is kept secret by one or more owners among themselves. The second variety is rented at a premium subscription price, month by month in order to keep links to a select website up.

Lots of blogs with relevant content + some updates

Mixed PR + Aged sites + Varied Anchor Text

Links going to the select Website + Users charged / Kept secret by a single or several owners

The Result?

They are very successful at ranking websites and producing very large amounts of money for those that rent out such services, but we don’t believe this will last very long:

As soon as a site is found to be receiving it’s links from networks, it may see SERP trouble materializing ahead.

History will repeat itself.

Recent History

The Public Blog Network/Public Link Network has a recent history of financial woes; many business owners, seeking a quick way to get their websites ranked #1 for exact match keyword terms, pursued subscriptions from major PBN’s. When Google found out about them in some way, it was over. All those links now meant very little for many stores, blogs, and other businesses that relied on those PBNs.

Despite this bad reputation, some are still creating public blog networks and renting them out for a premium fee. It is sad for the website owner that purchases a website that has been ranked using these networks.

Public vs Private?

The Private Blog Network is NOT rented out at a subscription to website owners. This is due to the reality that one mistake in mismanaging this risky scheme may lead to exclusion from a search engine like Google.

So the owners of Private Blog Networks are still scheming, but they are doing it privately to protect their assets. Although it may seem more safe, some are still getting detected and their business, though financially booming for a short while, will not be in sight in the long run.

Our recommendation is avoidance; such a practice has already proven to be wrong with Google and though the short term gain may seem tantalizing, it’s also unfairly cutting other legitimate website owners from seeing their site on Page 1.

What should I do?

I am excited about my websites, too. I want them to be successful and I have a lot of fun creating them. But whenever I see people going the easy and fast route, it makes me sad. To be content with the progress you’re seeing month to month should be enough. Continue to contribute useful posts to your websites, add more relevant articles, research even more, work even harder. Forget about what the others are doing, if what they’re doing is wrong – focus on doing what’s right.

With just a little more patience, you can accomplish much more than these expensively built networks. Should an algorithm change occur, your site may still receive direct visitors because you have focused on reaching the potential of your site; a useful resource for them on some niche subject, plus a relationship with the website owner.

Here are some ways to build links to your site:

After you’ve established your site with a few very informative articles, submit your site to Dmoz.org

Create a Facebook Fan page or Pinterest account and ask for help maintaining it with links going to your site. You can use Elance.com or Odesk.com to hire a VA to post social media posts regularly for you, but be sure to find the right employee. We hope to write about that soon.

Continue to publish good content regularly, when you are inspired and think of your visitors first: what would they benefit from? The links will come when people find your website truly useful.

Conclusion

We hope this article has been informative. If you have a different ideas for building links to your website, please share them here. We would like to hear about any ways that are free, follow the rules of search engines and are a good practice for website owners.